Make War, Not Love
by Kaesteranya
Summary: Drabbles for D18 -- that is, Hibari Kyouya and Dino Cavallone. Most of them will be porny, and a few of them might be AU.
1. A killing dance

**A killing dance**

* * *

Dino was certain that their first duel was the reason why he wanted him. Hibari Kyouya was a living embodiment of pure willpower, deadly grace, and life as the head of a mafia family gave Dino a flair for dramatics. No one knew it, but their fight had actually ended with a fuck on the rooftop (made possible by bondage and the varied uses of Dino's whip), but they weren't about to tell that to anybody.

It had started because Dino had promised that he would 'tame' the wild one for Tsuna; it continued for reasons that Dino would not tell the Tenth, not even if they lived to be old and gray, not even if they died tomorrow. Even allies had to keep secrets from each other, and that Dino was kinda-sorta sleeping with/screwing with one of Tsuna's future ring guardians was a pretty important one.


	2. How does it feel when you're inside me?

**How does it feel when you're inside me?**

_Um. I guess this is set sometime in the future. I mean, I know Dino hasn't shown up yet and all and some people suspect that he's dead or something, but fangirls must be allowed to dream, right? .._

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for July 24, 2006._

* * *

They kissed each other in the same way that they used to spar with each other: quickly and not entirely patiently, deeply and almost violently because neither of them wanted to be the first to allow the other time to breathe. It was almost always about one surrendering and another staying in control — Dino Cavallone allowed this because he knew that Kyouya Hibari despised weakness, even if it was the kind of weakness that one needed in order to fall in love and stay there. This was the only way that they could be with each other. 

Hibari reached out, fingers fumbling for the buttons of Dino's coat and the zipper of his pants. Dino pulled the younger man's hands away, threading Hibari's fingers between his own; his arms locked against Hibari's, keeping the tonfa-wielder from touching him. He smiled, unfazed by the smoldering look in Hibari's eyes; it was easy to ignore it, in favor of watching the boy's lips gasp for air and physical contact in the small, empty space between them.

"There's something I want to try," he murmured, right into Hibari's ear. "See, I've always wondered whether it's possible to fuck someone without letting him touch you."

"Stop screwing around!"

"It's a little bit late to be telling me that." Dino shifted, guiding the dark-haired man's arms down and crossing them together behind his back; he pulled Hibari closer, to better support his lover while keeping him from moving away at the same time. Years had passed since their very first time, but he could still hold both of Hibari's wrists in one hand without trouble. They kissed again. Dino felt Hibari shudder, and he held fast to keep his lover from pressing his body against him. The younger man squirmed. Dino chuckled.

"My, my… is this too difficult for you?"

Hibari stiffened at his words; it was enough for Dino to know that he had won. The blond leaned in, biting the ring bearer's neck lightly, and sucking the spots in order to better taste the skin. He could both see Hibari's conflicting instincts at work as he teased him: it was in his uneven breaths, his fluttering eyelids, the tremors creeping down his spine. _Fight _or _fuck_ were the only things Hibari could do with another man — _flee_ was never an option. _Beg_, however…

Dino moved, releasing Hibari long enough to turn him about in his arms and push him down unto the sheets; he heard the younger man gasp, and felt him tremble when Dino lowered himself down, pinning him between the bed and his weight.

"Keep your hands on the pillow. Now, spread your legs."

"D-Dino…"

Hibari was craning his neck, looking up at Dino as much as he could without turning around. It never ceased to amaze him how someone who looked that pretty and that fragile in his bed could be, with a word, Tsuna's cold-blooded killing machine on the battlefield. Dino kissed the back of the dark-haired fighter's neck. "Not yet," he said, as he slid one hand between the bed and Hibari's prone body; he kept his other hand near Hibari's lips. When he touched his lover, he moved two fingers into the younger man's mouth, letting him suck on them as he did his work. Hibari lasted longer than he had the last time they had come together, to his credit.

When they fucked Dino made sure to keep Hibari above him, where he could balance his lover between his hands and study the look on his face when he came. Sometime after the high Hibari was sprawled on Dino's chest, his breath a whisper against the latter's skin. He stirred and murmured something annoyed and unintelligible when the blond stroked his hair. Dino did not remember falling asleep, only that he had and when he woke up Hibari was already gone.

* * *

They saw each other after a week, when Dino dropped in to make a courtesy call with the head of the Vongola. Hibari was surprisingly present during the meeting; Dino found him with the rest of Tsuna's guardians, a dark-haired shadow lingering by the windowsill and ultimately outside of their circle. Dino waited until the conversations had tapered out before he stood and dismissed himself, promising to come another time. 

"Kyouya," he said, calling out to the one beyond the rest. He smiled and waved but once when he was sure that he had the younger man's attention. "I'll see you again soon."

And Hibari did nothing but incline his head and meet his gaze, briefly, before turning away.


	3. He is but for Death his passion flawless

**Quick at your word, all skill, grace/ He is, but for death his passion, flawless.**

_Theme date: August 10, 2006._

_Takes place sometime in the future. This is my little spin on how Hibari might have finally come around in the end and accepted his role as a guardian._

* * *

"Have you considered it?"

"What?"

"Acknowledging your ring. Joining the Vongola."

Hibari pushed himself up from the futon with a small sound of disgust. Dino chuckled. He watched the younger man rise to his feet and cross the room, to where they had discarded his kimono. The scars and the bullet wounds mapped years of fighting across Hibari's skin, but that did not occupy Dino's attention as much as the sight of Hibari just moving did.

"Weaklings do not interest me."

Dino flopped unto his stomach and grinned, earning a glare (which he completely ignored) for his troubles. "They've come a long way from your school days together, you know," he said, putting his chin on one hand. "They're not the kids you used to play with whenever you were bored."

"I did not 'play' with them."

"Right… whatever you say."

Hibari slipped into his kimono, ran a hand through his hair; a moment later, he stretched his arm out towards the window and beckoned towards Hibird. Dino could not remember when Hibari had started becoming comfortable with the idea of turning his back on him; in his wilder years, the dark-haired fighter had never let his guard down in Dino's presence, even after some mind-blowing sex. In those days, excluding the bed play, the only time Dino had ever gotten to watch Hibari from behind was when he was fighting. He still got the privilege of watching Hibari at it every now and then; his former pupil/sometimes lover had reached a level so far above the rest that not even a drop of blood from the ones he crushed could touch his sleeve.

"You live by impossible standards, Kyouya," Dino murmured as Hibari returned, "and you use those standards to judge everyone else. I think that Tsuna and the others have more than met those expectations though."

Hibari crawled over Dino; he reached out and ran one finger down the Cavallone's face and jawline. The gesture was both an invitation and a threat. "Now what do I have to do to get you to stop talking nonsense?" the dark-haired fighter whispered, with a small and crooked smile. "Do I have to start biting?"

And Dino did let him bite a few times, but not without stealing a few deep kisses and a blowjob. Later, after the sex, he called Tsuyanoshi Sawada — 10th Head of the Vongola Family — and informed him that he was going to visit the next day, with the Cloud Guardian in tow.


	4. Running late for an appointment w Death

**Running late for an appointment with Death**

_Theme date: March 16, 2008. This takes place during D18's "training" sessions, and inspired in part by a doujinshi titled "Kimi na nageru kokonotsu no toi"._

_I'm a little iffy about the flight times, but resources say that the FASTEST recorded flight from Italy to Japan is definitely 15 hours, and then some. So there we have it.  
_

* * *

Dino Cavallone was home for exactly one hour, fifteen minutes and forty-five seconds before a call from the Vongola Family's most trusted hit man had him out of bed and ready to make the harrowing fifteen-hour flight from Italy to Japan in the name of training a monster in the shape of a boy. That was the first time Romario had seen somebody literally roll out of bed and hit the ground running. That day, he also discovered that it was humanly possible to spin ala tornado into one's clothes. He was grateful for the fact that his young master managed to get a bit more sleep on the plane.

Kusakabe, acting on Kyouya Hibari's part, had the Namimori School Clinic closed off to the general student populace until lunchtime in order to give his superior officer the sort of medical attention he needed to be in tip-top shape before his next run-in with the Bucking Bronco of the Cavallone Family. Hibari had walked out of the last session with a bruised ribcage and a sprained wrist, but Kusakabe was fully aware of the fact that his boss would not back down, even if said ribs and wrist were broken. As such, the vice president of the Disciplinary Committee bribed Doctor Shamal into fixing up a quick cure with first-class tickets to one of the best girly clubs in the city. Securing those tickets had put a dent in the committee funds, but no price was too large for the sake of their boss.

Romario and Dino talked about booking hotels and matters of the family en-route from the airport to Namimori Academy; Romario wisely kept the topics menial, because he knew that ultimately, Dino's focus was on something else. In the meantime, on the rooftop of the school, Kusakabe and Hibari leaned against the chain-link fence and waited; Kusakabe noted how Hibari twirled his tonfa at odd intervals. It was a nervous tick that only came out when Hibari had found an opponent that was worth his while, but Kusakabe did not call his boss on it.

Later, after Dino and Hibari had kicked the shit out of each other and gone their separate ways until the next afternoon, Kusakabe and Romario met up for a quick drink at the ramen stand down the street. They did not talk about it, but the both of them knew and agreed that for the first time in years, their leaders had met someone who could make them feel truly, painfully and totally alive.


	5. 4

**4.**

_Title is taken from the 31 Days theme for February 14, 2006. Set in the future part of the TYL Arc. I'm working by the assumption that Tsuna and company manage to fix everything and all._

* * *

Dino Cavallone had turned his sights back to Japan and boarded the first jet that the family could provide him with the moment they had defeated the last wave of the Millefore's assault team. They received the word of the Vongola Family's victory when they were halfway across the Asia – Romario informed his boss immediately, hoping that it would soothe Dino's nerves even a little. He was not surprised, however, when Dino only offered him a tight smile before turning back towards the window and glaring at the clouds. Words like "success" and "victory" could take on many different shades and meanings, and it seemed as though recent events had only made Dino even more aware of that in the light of so much loss.

They arrived with the sunrise, just as the clean-up had started – the entire Namimori District had become a war zone, and the worst of the carnage and destruction was found on the Namimori Academy campus. Dino completely ignored the bodies and the chaos; he shouldered his way through the workers, waved off the questions, and disappeared down the entrance to the Vongola Family's underground hideout. Romario followed him without a word.

A large crowd milled about in front of the Sick Bay, and doctors and nurses moved in and out of the entrance, sometimes accompanied by people on stretchers. Dino went in and did not slow down, even when the smell of blood and antiseptic became a stench and lay so thick in the air that Romario could almost taste it on his tongue. The head of the Cavallone Family stopped at each room, peering in, checking who was there. His search came to an end in the farthest corner of the Sick Bay, where he found the one he was looking for surrounded by his followers, bandaging up his own ribs.

"Kyouya!"

"You're late, Cavallone."

Dino only laughed; he had probably meant the gesture to be casual, but it only ended up making it obvious how relieved he was. The members of Kyouya Hibari's research team parted to let him through, and looked on as the blond man dropped to his knees in front of the Vongola Family's Cloud Guardian. He reached out before he could stop himself, touching Hibari's cheek. Romario was a bit surprised at the fact that the younger man did not bat it away, as he might have only a year ago.

Kusakabe cleared his throat, drawing Romario's attention away from the pair. When the dark-haired man signaled for his men and stepped out, the Cavallone followed them. He surprised himself by taking the cigarette that Kusakabe offered him: it had been years since he had last smoked.

"Is everything all right on your end, sir?"

"Relatively. Either way, it's over."

"True."

The pair lit up and leaned back against the wall, watching the people, watching the lights. Meanwhile, back inside the room, Dino lowered his lover to the bed with a slow, deep kiss; Hibari let his fingers tangle themselves up in the older man's hair.


	6. Ofrenda

**Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Ofrenda.**

_Inspired by incoming's (LJ) fanon rambles on Hibari's fashion sense, linked to by Kat, which kinda makes it her fault too._

_The title means "offering" in Spanish, and it's taken from the 31 Days theme for October 31, 2007._

* * *

Dino Cavallone sees it sometimes, in those moments when they're making love or in those other moments when he's hanging back and watching Kyouya Hibari fight. He sees it mostly in pieces, unless they are in bed and Hibari is on his stomach beneath him, all teeth and breath and hardness, to better allow him to trace the patterns branded on the younger man's skin as they kiss/fuck/lick/bite/breathe each other in. Hibari has turned his body into a canvas, but beyond the bed, Dino can get nothing but chance glances of the young man's ever-expanding masterpiece: the white flash of a wing, the blood red of lycoris flowers.

The first tattoo had been elegant but simple – Hibari had gotten it years ago at Dino's kind suggestion (constant wheedling) following his first high-profile kill for the Vongola Family (although Hibari would always and ever insist that he did it for himself). After the mission, Dino ushered his former student into his car and had them driven over to the best tattoo parlor in town, insisting that it was Yakuza Tradition to mark one's self in order to celebrate the moment. Hibari had scoffed, naming the practice as barbaric and claiming that he needed no trophies beyond his own memories of his fights. Dino, however, was already an expert at getting his way by then, and Hibari, at that point, had not yet learned how to not-so-politely ignore him. Suffice to say, the young man shocked the tattoo artist by barely reacting as the needle scratched out the silhouette of a crane upon his back.

In the kills and shared nights to follow, Dino was more than surprised to discover that Hibari had turned that forced indulgence into a work in progress, expanding the picture across his back, over his arms and further down, just short of his ass. The process was similar to how fighter pilots stamped another plane unto their birds with each frag, but Hibari could never bring himself to be that crude. Everything he did was a meditation on perfection, a chance to do one thing and take it several hundred steps further.


	7. Dying by installments

**Dying by installments.**

_This takes place more than twenty years after the end of the manga: a possible look into what might have happened to Dino Cavallone and his student. The title is taken for the 31 Days theme for April 15, 2008; the titles for the two sections are taken from the themes for January 17, 2008 and April 21, 2008, respectively._

* * *

**I can only tell you my side of the story.**

"You have at least five thousand others that you could've bothered if you wanted company," he says, with no small amount of exasperation. "I don't understand why you had to drag me into this."

That sort of tone is supposed to piss people off: it's supposed to get them to back away (or maybe to attempt to snark back), to apologize, or to just generally leave it at that and leave him alone. If there is, however, one aspect about Dino Cavallone that has not changed in the past decade or so, it's that his goodness (read: dorkiness) is an impenetrable shield through which no snark or bitchery can pass through unscathed.

"But I wanted to spend it with you."

"You are being childish."

"I'm always childish."

And Dino blinks as he says this, looking so perfectly innocent, as if he _hadn't_ just dragged his companion halfway across the city in a poorly disguised attempt at asking for forgiveness without actually saying sorry. Sorry for what exactly, Hibari Kyouya isn't certain. Sorry for taking you away from the rings and the boxes and the endless research. Sorry for not changing and still being the clumsy _gaijin_ bungling his way through your territory. Sorry for telling you to trust me. Sorry for ending us, for getting married, for leaving you out in the cold. Sorry for being the one person that you just can't leave behind. But Hibari knows that Dino Cavallone would _not_ apologize for things like that, so it must be something else. Maybe it's something as simple as an apology for suddenly turning up after years of radio silence, for talking about his dearly departed wife and the kids back home and the subtext of second chances.

Hibari usually keeps himself too busy for memories on a regular basis, but now that he's stuck in Dino's car with nothing to do but stare out the window and see everything but the scenery, there's nothing stopping him from thinking back to the moments where he let his guard down, moments where he wasn't at his best. He remembers the little details, details that he could sooner do without: how cold a bed is after a goodbye fuck, how strange a shower feels when there's the salt of your tears mixing in the water, the silent support of the elevator wall, the one you leaned your back against a good twenty years ago, to quietly break down after coming to see him in his office the morning after, like the gods were all in place and everything was right with the world. Like you weren't in his bed just the other night, knowing that this is going to be the last time and while this might not kill you everything else that's bound to follow (keeping your distance, watching him move on) will. Like you weren't in his bed just the other night, thinking of killing/kissing/hurting/hating/loving him all at the same time as he pressed in, pressed close, and breathed your name into your ear, like an apology. It kill you in a way that isn't honorable, isn't right, isn't what you've been fighting for years and years to die for, and you won't be able to walk away.

Hibari Kyouya thinks that really, he could've done without all of that, but the car ride ends before he knows it and he doesn't really have the time to think anymore: Dino's walking through the revolving doors of that five-star hotel he's been pretty much blackmailed into going to, and at this point, not following him is going to look like a retreat, and the Cloud Guardian of the Vongola never retreats.

"If it helps, you don't have to look at it as a date," Dino says a moment later, when they're seated at a table close enough to the action but far enough away to be private. "You can call it a business meeting! Tsuna will believe you if he asks!"

And when the blond man smiles, there's this look to his eyes that wasn't there in his younger years: it's open, it's honest, it's hopeful, and it's directed at Hibari at full power. Hibari avoids it by turning to the waiter hovering by their table, asking for the finest sake in the house. He is not good at dealing with honesty, at trusting in another… or more like, he has forgotten how to, with this one. Maybe he made himself forget.

* * *

**There's no time for catchy lines.**

They can measure the rest of their evening in the changing of performers and Dino's one thousand and one attempts at conversation. First, the string quartet and Dino talking about the family. Second, the young-looking pianist and Dino talking about the Vongola. It's on the third count, with the pouty-lipped and curly-haired jazz singer, that Dino succeeds in getting a reaction, and it's only because he finally let his words stutter away, into the night music and the human noise all around them. She is singing about drinking black coffee and never knowing a Sunday in a weekday room when the one who Dino really wanted to hear finally speaks.

"…Why?"

"Eh?"

Hibari is looking at him, really looking at him, for the first time that whole evening: prior to that, the younger man seemed to do everything in his power to avoid his gaze without being too obvious about it, to see past him without actually backing down.

Dino wonders if there was ever another time when Hibari looked this beautiful to him, so flawless and so distant and so totally out of his reach. He thinks that it might've been back during that one mean summer in a funeral season, when he missed the chance to reach out and catch Hibari and Hibari had ended up walking away from him, out that door and off his property and right out of his life. He had been twenty-six then; Hibari had been eighteen. It had taken him three years to come in, come close and steal Hibari Kyouya's heart; it had taken two words for him to break it, to ruin that strange, ambivalent, crooked and perfect something that they had had beyond repair.

The Hibari now, however, is speaking to him, and he buries the past for the moment.

"Why now? Why after all of this? I… I don't understand."

_Why are you asking me to do this again?_

The words are hanging in the air between them, but Hibari cannot bring himself to say it and Dino doesn't have an answer, even if he needs one.

The singer finishes her number, bows, departs from the stage; a round of polite clapping follows in her wake. Hibari stands up with a quiet sigh.

"…I tire of this, Cavallone. Call me when you actually need something."

And years before, Dino might have protested, might have grabbed that hand and demanded attention and taken what he wanted, but if there is anything he has learned throughout the course of their story, their being-together-by-not-being-together anymore, it's that Hibari has to walk away this time and he has to let the younger man do it.

As he returns to his hotel room, Dino changes his clothes and sinks into a bed too big for a widower. There's no scent on those pillows, no sound in that place beyond the quiet whisper of the heater. He tells himself, just before drifting off, that there will be time, there will be time, there will be time.

(He could be lying to himself and he knows it, but Dino Cavallone is a man who values the need for sleep more than honesty.)


	8. Things I will regret

**Things I will regret.**

_Taken from one of my random brainfarts during a busy day on Plurk; I'm guessing that this takes place after some gang fight. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 15, 2006._

_

* * *

  
_

"I learned from the best," he says, through a split lip, fogged eyes. White hands on white sheets, dark hair against a sterilized pillow.

Dino should regret it – he knows he ought to. It's hard not to think back to how he watched them at it, saw one take the cigarette from his mouth and press the burning end into the back of Hibari's hand. Even though he had dropped everything the moment he had heard about the mission, he had not gone to help the boy the moment he had arrived because he knew Hibari could help himself. He had stood back, and now there were bodies piled up in a ruined building miles away from that little hospital room they were both in now.

Dino was torn between thinking about how uncomfortable the chair he was sitting in was, and how small Hibari looked in that hospital cot. It was strange, the things one started to think about after a life and death situation.

"Did you say something?" he asks in spite of himself, offering a smile. Until that point, he had believed that smiling was easy.

"I said I learned from the best," Hibari returns, softer than usual, defeated not by the pain but the meds and how they made his head too heavy for the rest of his body. The boy's slipping again, but he's stubborn. Dino knows this now, after that many years of trip-ups, bruises, and humiliating moments large and small. Dino indulges him. It's the only way to get him to sleep.

"Yeah, I guess you did."

Hibari sleeps, and Dino tries not to stare at that circle of misplaced skin and burned flesh at the center of Hibari's hand.


	9. Visceral love

**Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Visceral love.**

_Title is taken from the 31 Days theme for August 2, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

Hibari Kyouya likes to strike from the top, a subconscious acknowledgment of his namesake (death from above, shadow of brutality bearing down in a flash of blue eyes and metal fangs). Dino realizes that this is part of the thrill of fighting him: being able to tear him down, to pluck him from the sky. He knows things now, having seen Hibari in several hundred states of all things wrong for a child like him: slammed into a wall, or pressed to the floor, or tangled in a web of limbs and leather. He has kept the prefect down, as he crushed those fingers against the steel of the weapon they held; he has held his student close, fingers grazing over the length of that throat and the whip coiled around it, tracing each hitch of his student's breath as he gasps for air. He commits these things to memory, and uses his knowledge to gain the upper hand every time they crash together, because any foothold is a good foothold when one is dealing with an anomaly like Hibari.

"Be a good kid and quit while you're ahead, Kyouya."

They've grown close and become familiar with a particular lack of distance not because Hibari allowed it to happen, but because Dino left him with no choice in the matter; the young prefect is reminded of this uncomfortable truth by the fact that even if he fought tooth and nail every step of the way, Dino _still_ managed to pin him to the rooftop of Namimori Middle School. Hibari tells himself that he's displeased by the general picture (Dino on top of him, holding one of his own tonfa against his throat), and not the specifics of this situation (Dino's large hand crushing his wrist, Dino's knee bumping against his crotch, Dino's warm breath against his ear, Dino's amused eyes taking in every humiliating detail).

"Let go."

"Not yet. I want to savor this a little longer."

Hibari attempts to punch Dino in the face with his one free hand, but his tutor preempts him, catching him in mid-swing with a little laugh.

"Just kidding."

And Dino pulls away, ruffling the boy's hair in apology. Hibari straightens up, fumbling for his tonfa, avoiding the young man's eyes. He tells himself that he's having trouble breathing because Dino had landed a square blow to his chest earlier. It's not because their faces had been nearly close enough for their noses to touch, or because he was wondering, as he often has these days, if he'll taste the ash of Dino's cigarettes in the man's mouth should they happen to kiss. He keeps himself from going crazy by not thinking too deeply about the strangeness of their relationship, of what's there, or – more accurately – what's missing.

Hibari realizes five minutes too late that Dino has taken advantage of his distraction, and is currently fussing over him as though he were an injured bird and not a wild-haired boy who is sometimes just one step short of defeating him. He holds still on a point of pride, suffering the indignity of Dino poking at bruises, clucking at scratches, straightening his jacket and fixing collar for him.

"I guess I can patch you up later," Hibari hears Dino say, just as he knots his tie. "You've got a Student Council meeting in fifteen minutes."

"Since when did you know my schedule?"

"Since I started training you."

Iron grip, disarming smile. Hibari scoffs and turns away. It was funny how just a few days back, he would've tried wiping the floor with that smile.

"See you later, Kyouya."

Hibari slams the door on the way down, and hits the stairwell with an energy that he's not supposed to have, given the fact that he's been sparring with the Bucking Horse since six in the morning. He is late for the meeting because he opts to spend some time in the gray silence of the Disciplinary Committee room, erasing that last fatal image of clouds, sky, green eyes and blond hair from his mind.


	10. 3 AM on a school night

**3:00 AM on a school night**

_This fic is so totally AU, it hurts. It also totally has no plot, and totally makes no sense._

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for September 5, 2008._

_

* * *

  
_

"You know," Dino Cavallone declared as a matter of fact, "part of me wishes that I had a camera with me right now, just so that I could show you the way you look." The only response that he received was a muffled whimper and a slight, almost imperceptible shiver against his palm. The History teacher grinned, and grinned only wider when he felt that cute little butt flinch away from him when he slapped it with the pointer in his hand, nice and good.

There was a great amount of novelty in taking over the Namimori High School's clinic, sequestering one of the beds and tying up his rather reluctant colleague from the Science Department using jump rope for the binds and his own tie as a blindfold. He was sure that a lot of the girls (and more than a few of the boys) in Hibari Kyouya's classes would kill to see their teacher as he was at that moment: sprawled on his belly, trussed up by his wrists to the headboard of the cot, ass up in the air and twitching against the vibrator merrily humming away between its cheeks. Dino was rather proud of the fact that it had taken him fifteen minutes to subdue Hibari that time around. The last time had been one heck of a grueling hour, but that had mostly been due to the fact that he hadn't been introduced to that wonderful concept called bondage. It made things a lot easier if he did not have to explain away the suspicious scratch marks on his cheeks and arms.

"C-Cavallone, y… you… l-let me go already!"

"But you haven't told me all about friction yet! I passed by your classroom the other day and heard you delivering a lecture on it. I really, really enjoyed it, you know~"

Dino turned the notch up on the controller in his hand. Hibari pitched forward, biting down unto his own fingers to keep from crying out. The Italian never failed to find it so adorable how Hibari tried his best to stay in control, even when he didn't really have any. "What was that about friction again?" he murmured, reaching out with his free hand and taking the younger teacher by the hilt. "Heat is a result of two surfaces constantly rubbing against each other, was it? Is it something like this?"

He moved his hand on cue, sending Hibari into another fit of shivers and suppressed, trembling moans. He feigned innocence and took his time, studying every curve of his colleague's body, noting the way he writhed against the sheets. Doctor Shamal was in the perfect position to scold him if he found out what they were doing in his office, but Dino highly doubted that the man had much moral ascendancy over them given the fact that he and a student – one Gokudera Hayato – often got busy in the clinic's bathroom during off hours.

"I wonder what will happen," Dino innocently remarked as he took hold of the vibrator with his other hand, "if I were to apply the high school conceptions of friction and acceleration on a single body."

The next day, Dino found himself called into Principal Reborn's office. The man was dressed in his usual quirky mafia-esque getup, and stroking his pet lizard Leon from where it was curled beneath his hand.

"So, care to tell me why Hibari-kun's walking around with a very pronounced limp and avoiding any seats that don't have cushions on them?"

"I was, uh, helping him review."

Reborn sent him a Look. Dino grinned. In the meantime, Hibari sneezed rather violently in the middle of a lecture about the two kinds of energy and the law of inertia.


	11. A kiss to build a dream on

**A kiss to build a dream on**

_I… I hope this passes for something Snow White-ish. orz Anyway, this takes place during the Varia Arc, and it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but I REGRET NOTHING, I TELL YOU. NOTHING!_

_Just for the record: I don't know who the patron saint for lost causes actually is, and I'm not even sure whether he or she exists. Oh, and the title is taken from the 31 Days theme for November 10, 2007._

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Given the fact that he was Reborn's ex-student and he dealt with Strangeness of All Kinds on a regular basis, Dino Cavallone really shouldn't have been surprised at the most recent turn of events. The young boss was, however, the sort of guy who really appreciated it when he knew exactly _how_ a lot of the Strangeness actually happened, for if there was one thing that he had been taught over the years, it was that even the strangest events had a particular logic behind them.

"…So he ate an apple meant for Tsuna."

"You forgot to add 'poisoned' to that."

"And it was poisoned _why_?"

"Well… Bianchi-nee thinks that Reborn-san will pay more attention to her if she can get rid of all the people distracting him!"

"Sorry, I'm… still a little lost. How did Kyouya get a hold of the apple in the first place?"

"Um. Maybe he was hungry?"

Reborn yawned. Fuuta, on the other hand, had the grace to look sympathetic_. _Romario seemed to share the same sentiments as the boy, but he did not really count since he was almost always on his boss' side anyway. Dino did not like where the situation was going at all.

"I still don't know where I come in on this."

"You are his home tutor," Reborn cut in; Dino could not see his former tutor's expression from under the shade of his fedora. "Taking care of him is part of your job. We need Tsuna's Cloud Guardian up before his fight with Gola Mosca."

"But I don't even know what happened to him! Can't we ask Shamal?"

"Shamal-san refuses to help, Dino-san," Fuuta piped up. "He claims that he already did us a big favor by treating Yamamoto-san."

Dino felt a headache coming along. The Italian boss lifted a small, soundless prayer up to the patron saint of lost causes before speaking again. "So I'm supposed to bring Kyouya home and see what I can do for him?"

The look in Reborn's beady eyes and the Arcobaleno's mysterious little smile was the only answer Dino needed to know that he was right on the money.

Dino found himself carrying Hibari Kyouya up the stairs of the hospital he had his men take over and through the door of his room. Romario dutifully trailed after him, making sure that the young boss did not trip, stumble, or break anything along the way just by being there.

"We can deal with a life-or-death case like Squalo's," Dino muttered as he walked in, "but _this_?"

"Maybe the answer's more obvious than we think it is, boss," Romario put in. The bespectacled man lingered by the doorway, looking on as Dino carefully lay his (often VERY unwilling) student unto his bed. He only blinked when Dino sent him a questioning look. "Well, the Poison Scorpion used a poisoned apple. Doesn't that sound familiar?"

"Eh, what do you mean by—" Dino abruptly cut off. "…_No_."

Romario only smirked. "Maybe you should restrain him before you try and wake him up, boss," the man helpfully suggested as he turned away. "Given your track record with Hibari-kun, I doubt that the kid's going to appreciate a good morning kiss from your end."

As he watched the door click shut behind his most trusted subordinate, Dino vaguely wondered what he had done to deserve the sort of situation he was in. The young man, however, almost immediately remembered what had recently come to pass between him and Hibari. He drew up a chair by the bed with a sigh, and it wasn't long before he fell to watching the boy on the bed. Given the fact that his usual dealings with Hibari involved him clutching his whip and the prefect glaring daggers at him from across Namimori Middle School's rooftop, it was a little unsettling, seeing Hibari in that state. He looked at peace, almost like he was only sleeping and would get up at any given moment.

_This kid has the potential to take me apart._

When Reborn had approached him about training one of Sawada Tsuyanoshi's future Ring Guardians, Dino had not been sure about what to expect. Hanging around with Tsuna had given him an opportunity to relate closely with Gokudera Hayato and Yamamoto Takeshi, and both of them had honestly surprised him with the sheer amount of potential that they possessed. He had not expected to be completely blown away by a wild-haired, pouty-lipped kid just three years short of being ten years too young for him with an odd oral fixation and enough murderous intent to kill an army.

…_You weren't expecting to fall for him either._

Dino suppressed another sigh; the blond man reached out, brushing Hibari's cheek with the back of his hand, gently tracing the curve of the boy's lips with his fingers. The whole situation suddenly felt like some sort of joke set up to test his resolve. He had not planned on trying anything funny again until the whole Varia incident was over. His last lapse of judgment (Time & Location: 6 PM, Namimori Middle School's Disciplinary Committee Room; Situation: one couch, no bed, flimsy bandages, sturdy whip, rain, frustration, pale blue eyes) had done little beyond give Hibari one more reason to want to kill him whenever they sparred with each other. Back then, however, the future of the Vongola Family had not been in as much jeopardy as it was at present, with Tsuna's one potential trump card out of the running.

_Even that sounds like a lame excuse for wanting to kiss someone, Cavallone._

Hibari's breathing remained steady and calm, even after Dino's fingers had strayed into the boy's mouth, gently parting those pale pink lips. The young Italian had just one more moment of hesitation before his other instincts got the better of him, and he bent down, replacing his fingers with his own lips. He held that position, kissing the boy lying on his bed. It wasn't long before disengaging was the farthest thing from his mind, even after he felt Hibari stir beneath him, even after he swallowed the surprised gasp that threatened to break out of the boy's throat. Payment came in the form of a small fist rather violently connecting with the side of his face.

"Heh. Welcome back, Kyouya."

Dino grinned from where he had stumbled off his chair and unto the floor, rubbing his jaw and looking up at the boy glaring rather viciously down at him. Hibari was now very much awake and sending him a look that could curdle milk from five hundred meters away; Dino could feel the waves of righteous indignation rolling off Hibari's form.

"…What happened to me?"

"You had a Snow White moment."

"You're not making sense at all," Hibari snapped. The dark-haired kid pushed himself off the bed, stood up—

—and promptly stumbled into Dino's arms. The latter had stood up on the pretense of righting his chair, and had ended up with an arm full of flustered boy who no longer seemed capable of supporting his own weight. Dino stared down at Hibari with no small amount of surprise; he listened to the boy's ragged breathing, noted his flushed cheeks. There was the kid who ruled Namimori with tonfa and an uncompromising hand was currently shaking in his grip, barely strong enough to lift his head.

"…Kyouya, are you all right?"

"Do I _look _like I'm all right?"

"A little less lip, please. I'm trying to help you here."

Dino said this as he lowered Hibari back unto the bed, moving with the same amount of care that he had used to bring the boy over to the hospital. Dino went through all the regular motions of checking someone's condition; he was left to wonder why Hibari suddenly couldn't look at him up until the point where one of his hands brushed over one of Hibari's nipples through the fabric of his shirt and the boy trembled anew, biting his lip and suppressing something that sounded suspiciously like a moan.

…_Well now._

Dino wordlessly moved from the chair at the side of the bed to the bed itself, staring at Hibari with new eyes – the boy matched him gaze for gaze, but the glare was softened by the fact that he was obviously having a difficult time holding himself together. The blond Italian considered his options for a moment before he finally decided to throw care to the wind and went for the zipper on the boy's pants. He grabbed Hibari's wrists with his free hand the moment the boy attempted to brush him away, slamming them against the spot just above Hibari's head.

"W-what do you think you're—" Hibari cut off with a gasp as Dino reached into his pants, brushing long, cool fingers over his briefs. The boy was hot and hard, just as Dino had suspected.

"Reborn told me to take care of you," said Dino, in a low and quiet voice. "I can't just leave you like this, now can I?"

Two hours and hell lot of hand jobs/blow jobs/licking/rimming/finger fucking/kissing/petting later, Dino discovered that he rather liked being fully clothed with a very naked Hibari stretched out beneath him, torn between struggling and submitting, fighting him off and begging him to keep going. Dino paid for it dearly the morning after, when he woke up in time to stop an extremely irate Hibari from throwing him out the window (they were on the third floor of the hospital), but he considered it a price well-paid.


	12. Walking is fun

**He was running out of road, he was running out of breath**

_Watch me fail at stupid and pointless fluff. And shameless plugs of another favorite series of mine._

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 12, 2008._

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"America was really, really fun! Although I wish I could've stayed here longer~"

"Mm."

"The Gandor Family is kind of strange, but they're good people? The other bosses say all sorts of things about them, but I personally…"

Hibari Kyouya was the sort of person who lived mostly on instinct and by adjusting, with amazing quickness, to his surroundings whenever necessary. One of the things he had learned, then, out of sheer necessity and the need to preserve his sanity, was to block Dino Cavallone out whenever the man suddenly decided to do the silliest things on a whim. Like follow him on patrol, or on the way home. Talking. Every single step of the way.

"—like Luck-san! I mean, he's the perfect gentleman! Totally not like what the old guys say about him back at home. I'll never understand it."

In retrospect, he wasn't really obligated to be nice – his life would be, in fact, a whole lot easier if he just turned around, beat the blond idiot up and went on his way. If he was not up to expending that much effort, he also had the option of simply stepping aside and letting Dino meet a fatal accident somewhere along the road. Romario and the other Cavallone mafioso were not around at the moment, and Hibari knew firsthand how helpless the young boss was without his people. It would be only too easy to feign ignorance and watch Dino get chased by dogs, run into lampposts, get swarmed by the neighborhood soccer kids, trip over benches or – better yet – get hit by a car while crossing the street.

Why he was constantly stepping in the way to dispose of potential Code Reds and pulling a completely oblivious (and still babbling) Dino Cavallone out of danger, Hibari did not know.

"Kyouya," Dino whined as Hibari deftly switched places with him in order to keep him from crashing into a set of fruit stalls, "your name is so hard to write in kanji!"

"Can you teach me how to eat with chopsticks again?" Dino asked as Hibari plowed ahead of him, to clear out a safe path to walk on along the suddenly crowded sidewalk. "I keep messing up~"

"Oh, oh, oh! Romario and I went to this authentic tea ceremony thing yesterday!" Dino exclaimed, just as Hibari tugged him back by the collar in time to narrowly miss a head-on collision with a sixteen-wheeler truck. "It was kinda really boring though. Why do you guys like that stuff so much?"

Two hours and some several hundred disasters later, Dino found himself standing at the door to the apartment he and the Cavallone rented out during their stay in Namimori. He wondered, idly, why Hibari seemed to look a little frazzled, but quickly passed it off as something else.

"I love walks, Kyouya! Don't you?"

Hibari answered him with a thwack to the face with one tonfa and a shove into the apartment and towards the bed.


	13. The thrill of the kill is your only law

**The thrill of the kill becomes your only law.**

_Written for the word prompt "hands" over at the KHR Fic Meme, with a title from the 31 Days theme for June 27, 2008. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~_

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Call him an idiot, but it was because of Hibari that Dino discovered the romantics behind killing a man together then joining hands, slick with blood and ripe with bruises, after the deed. There was nothing right about that picture (racing down the street and into the crowd, holding on, anchoring each other to the here and now through fire and violence), but "right" in a world like theirs was perhaps the most relative idea in existence.

"So I guess this is a date?"

"Shut up and walk faster, Bucking Horse."

Everything about Hibari was small – Dino remembered thinking that in the past and the observation had never quite fallen out of favor. Small form, small limbs, small eyes, small feet, small heart, and Dino was taking all of it into himself, smothering that wild-haired kid with kindness. He remembered their first (the D.C. room at Namimori, on the couch, it was raining, there was a whip and the prefect's armband instead of bondage) and he remembered that one pang of remorse he nearly felt at having to break this kid across his knee. It had vanished, somewhere between their fifteenth fuck and Hibari Kyouya telling him, rather matter-of-factly, that if Dino Cavallone should decide to leave him for another he would kill the man himself.

"…What do you think you're doing?"

Blink back to the now, with them hiding out in an alleyway, him pinning Hibari to a wall, Hibari glaring up at him. Dino smiled and kissed him, kissed him until the boy's body relaxed in his grip and he felt the boy's tongue stroke his own.

"If you didn't want it, you wouldn't have kissed back."

"Pervert."

Hibari pulled away first. Dino held fast with a laugh, his grip steady in spite of the fact that both of their hands were still red and wet with someone else's blood.

Dirty old man at the age of twenty-two. Dino Cavallone could deal with that.


	14. Who can love you and still be standing?

**Who can love you and still be standing?**

_Written for the word prompt "heaven" over at the KHR Fic Meme, with a title from the 31 Days theme for May 23, 2008. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~_

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One would think that a man who hates crowds would choose a ranged weapon, not tonfa, not something that would require them to get up close. Hibari Kyouya, however, does not view his opponents as human beings but as obstructions, constructs of flesh and bone that he needs to break between his own two hands, or as objects that he can use to get that extra leverage he needs in order to move up to the next level, and the next, and the next. Dino used to think that it had been all about the violence – he had only learned years later, after fighting/fucking Hibari for that long, that the violence was nothing but a means towards ascension. It was Hibari's language, in through that language he determined everything else.

That did not mean, however, that Dino ever got used to coming in to his room and finding Hibari seated on his bed, pulling a bandage tight about his arm with his teeth, or looking up from his paperwork to see Hibari stepping in, bearing the latest spoils of war. He just learned to politely tune out everything that his parents and tutors had taught him about ethics and morality, and compared Hibari to the cat that was too proud to admit that it was owned but showed its master affection instead, by dragging in dead and ugly things as gifts. Dino, of course, always made it a point to reward him, with a smile, a kiss, and a polite reminder to dispose of that severed head/hand/foot he was holding because really, it was dripping all over his Persian carpet and really, fucking wasn't half as fun if somebody smelled like a grave.

Hibari rewarded him for his thoughtfulness in kind, with tonfa strikes and hissed demands and wrists to bind with whip or rope or belt or chains and an ass and cock for him to touch and tease as he pleased.


	15. Show me nothing but surrender

**Can't you show me nothing but surrender?**

_This one is written to the word prompt "jealousy", and it takes place ten years into the future. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 29, 2008._

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Their hot, heady and rather violent activities for the evening started with a smoldering look and five words:

"Don't think I didn't notice."

Just three hours back, Dino had been making the rounds at another one of the Vongola Family's grand open dinners, chatting up with all the usual people and occasionally bothering Sawada Tsuyanoshi – his little brother – and any of the Ring Guardians that he happened to run into. Just three hours back, Rokudo Mukuro ended up accosting him before he managed to track down Hibari (who was being elusive as usual), coming on to Dino with all the usual mischief and not-so-subtle innuendo. Dino had played along, of course, because he knew that Mukuro wasn't really interested in him at all – the Cavallone's only value to the Mist Guardian was that sidling up to him would anger the person he was _really _interested in.

Suffice to say, the person in question was VERY angry, just as Mukuro had planned.

Dino was ambushed the moment he excused himself for the evening and made his way back to the guest quarters that Tsuna had prepared for him – he had opened the door to a tonfa flying straight for his face, which he narrowly dodged by ducking just in the nick of time. The next thirty minutes passed by in a blur of violent blows and broken furniture, and ended with them tangled up in what used to be Dino's office chair – or, more properly, with Dino sitting down and Hibari tangled up in his whip, pressed up uncomfortably close against Dino's body, straining to bring his tonfa in close to strike the man again. Seconds dragged on in silence punctuated by nothing but their harsh, heavy breathing.

"…Are you done, Kyouya?"

Ten years ago those words would have earned him a hot look and an angry growl. The look remained, but the growl was replaced by Hibari simply dropping his tonfa and pitching forward, to capture his mouth in a deep, demanding kiss. They break away when they both remember that really, it might have been a good idea to go up for air before kissing some more. Dino eventually loosens his whip, to better allow Hibari to wrap his arms around his neck and pull him in closer.

"You," Hibari later snarled into Dino's ear as he undid (rips off) the buttons of his shirt, "are _mine_, and don't you dare forget it."

Dino only smiled, took a hold of Hibari's wrists and pushed him back, unto the one unharmed piece of furniture in the room: the office desk. The bed was too damned far anyway.


	16. O little sparrows, mind your place!

**O little sparrows, mind your place!**

_This takes place somewhere between the end of the series and ten years into a new future. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 31, 2009._

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It is morning by the time he wakes; he knows by the silence and smell. Impenetrable as the dark is, there is a shade to it, perceptible only to a child like himself: still, cool, urgent with the first touch of dew. An hour of anticipation, of waiting for the light.

Hibari Kyouya realizes that he has never seen Dino this close before – he has never been in any real position to study the man uninterrupted, for all the intimacy of the battlefield and, more recently, the bedroom. There's a moment of irritation, white hot and bad enough to threaten what little hold he has on his own temper. He forces himself to think on it to calm himself down, and realizes that it's because of the way the man looks: quiet and peaceful, disarmed and perfectly at home with having a murderer-in-training – the Guardian of another Family that may be his rival somewhere down the road – beside him in bed.

There's another something he can't define in him, something much colder and sharper, made of the whispers in the corridor, the looks people send them both when they think Hibari is not watching them and it is safe for them to talk and rant and speculate and judge. As if their standards were _his _standards. As if they had the right to understand exactly what it is between him and this perfectly infuriating, perfectly vulnerable man.

Perhaps it hurts, but Hibari does not know what it is to hurt. He watches the gentle rise and fall of Dino's chest, considers waking the man up with a tonfa to the side of his jaw and ends up reaching over that sleeping body, for the pack of cigarettes lying on its side by the night table. Hates the things, really (they taste like Dino's mouth more often these days), but this is the one thing that he can never stop himself from doing now, even more so than breaking bones down the road to almost-perfection.

Someday, Hibari tells himself, he will leave this one. He will stand up, shake that hand off of his shoulder and walk out the door and never look back. Dino has human concerns, and he believes that he is above such things – has to be, with what he plans to do. Fighting means flying means not getting tied down. Not staying still long enough to come to consider dangerous possibilities.

Hibari lights up and takes a drag and does not move. Dino turns towards the warmth of Hibari's body and sighs in his sleep.


	17. And may tomorrow be wonderful too

**A****nd may tomorrow be wonderful too.**

_Written for the prompt "old wines". The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for November 19, 2009._

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On New Year's Eve, some thirty minutes after midnight and somewhere in the middle of all the hugging and shouting and laughing and fireworks, Romario looks up and notices that the young master is, in fact, nowhere in sight all of a sudden. There one second, surrounded by friends and family and Family, and very much gone in the next, like he had never been around in the first place.

Romario excuses himself the moment he is able, and trudges down to the wine cellars – he makes a beeline past the regular fare, past the special collection, and all the way down to the VERY special collection, the one that Dino's father had, in his life, assembled for himself. The one that no one was supposed to touch without the boss' permission.

Still, there's an empty shelf on the third row, at the seventh column – one of the Château Pétrus 1962s. That makes for the fifth bottle that's gone missing in total, and Romario is actually not surprised by this at all. Five, counting down five different New Year's Eves, five long years since the beginning of his charge's very strange relationship with a very special certain someone.

Romario returns to the party with a rueful shake of his head. In the meantime, in his chambers, Dino Cavallone barely manages to shut the door between the fact that he's holding a wine bottle on one end and getting kissed rather vehemently by Hibari Kyouya on the other. To his credit, he manages to set the bottle down somewhere before they both trip along and tumble down, unto his bed.


End file.
